February Totals

So I am finding that trying to reduce my budget by the goal I wanted, to be a difficult challenge for many reasons. First and for most, we eat meat. Secondly, I give a lot of food away. Easily $300.00 to $400.00 worth (before saving) per month. So by giving that much away, I have to replenish to continue to give away. Thirdly, when my kids want a particular healthy food (i.e. Babel cheese, fruit, etc.) I will buy it whether I have a coupon, sale or not. I do stock up when it is on sale; however, many times that kind of stuff just does not go on sale.

So for the month of Febraury I increased my budget back up to $275.00 per pay period $135ish per week. I am still going to try to reduce my budget as the months progress, just not guite so suddenly. A drop by $100.00 for two weeks is a big jump. And as I stated when I start this crazy adventure to reduce my budget, I would not hesitate to increase it back up if we were not eating the food we enjoy eating.

So here are my totals of February.

Shelf Cost $1,366.67
Coupons Savings $383.40
Discount Savings $454.71
Rebates $17.98
Total Saved $856.09
Total Spent $528.56
Percentage Saved 61.32%
Amount under budget ($550.00) $21.44

So not terrible. I am going to stick with the $275.00 per pay period (two weeks) for the month of March and see how that goes first. If I continue to be under budget, then I will try reducing just a touch more. That is slow I guess you could say.